@cmuirmath
Community college math professor in the PNW (USA). Misses the early bird app, glad to find old friends (and new ones) here. Neurodivergent, queer, spoonie. Nerd, geek, fandoms random. Probably caffeinating. Pronouns in bio: she/her or they/them
I wonder how many people realize this is the norm.
“Households containing an adult w/a work-disability require, on average…an additional $17,690/year…to obtain the same standard of living as a comparable household w/o a member w/a disability.”
www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/reports/extr...
I'm doing my 2025 taxes & this year I had $19,984 in unreimbursed medical expenses. It is incredibly expensive for disabled people to stay alive in this country.
Stick with pale gray-green foliose lichen
Various fluffy lichens on windfall stick
Forked windfall branch with lots of lichen
Stick with some foliose lichen
Windfall sticks all nice & licheny ...
In case you missed it: recording of @yasser-tamer.bsky.social workshop with Alan Levine as part of #OEWeek titled: Designing With, Not Around, Disabled Learners.
See firsthand Yasser's experience with using a screenreader when material is inaccessible:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT_g...
#A11Y
#Ed
#tdih 1965 Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama.
While corporate media focused on the march, the violence against African Americans had a long history.
So did the organizing by Black sharecroppers, teachers, students, & more.
Read about the UNIA, DCVL, SNCC ⬇️.
www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bl...
The point is, LLMs aren't designed to be used critically. They are built to do exactly what this author/AI user says we shouldn't do.
The only way to make AI less harmful is to change its design, not to change the way users engage with it.
When I told @ajbauer.bsky.social he was a poet, he answered something like "I'm not a poet, the world is poetry, I'm just a journalist reporting on the poetry," which itself is poetry
I honestly don't understand people who take screenshots of articles and don't post a link here. We don't have an algorithm that punishes you for links to outside the ecosystem, so you're just being an asshat who refuses to cite your sources when you do that
What AI skills need to be developed exactly? How to copy and paste a question prompt? How to write a more precise command or inquiry? How to better disguise and humanize the resulting AI essay?
These are hardly "critical" skills. And none of this is "education."
Well this is delightful. If we're going to have to rerun the 80s, we may as well have some of the fun bits.
Two scientists walk through a cluttered old-fashioned science laboratory. The female scientist says “Analogue instruments! Paper records! Chalk boards! I thought you'd agreed to modernise the laboratory?” The male scientist replies “That's what i'm so excited about: we have moved to cloud-based storage for our data!” They step out onto a balcony. She says: “Please tell me you haven't built a library zeppelin” This is exactly what he has done. It floats across the sky and he adds “It's got a fax machine!”
My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.com
FYI my doctor tested me for measles immunity because it’s been so long. It turns out I don’t have it anymore, so I’m getting myself vaxxed again. Ask your doctor to check you.
Related PSA: if you have international online events coming up, know that some countries are losing an hour tonight, others will do so later this month, and others don't change the clocks at all!
#academicsky
Progress Pride. Enamel over zinc alloy, stainless steel ear wires. $12
Check out my product! www.peculiarityshop.com/product-page...
It's not just the direct violence that takes lives in war. Interruptions to healthcare provision & pharmaceutical supplies are deadly
CNN: "Without insulin, people with type 1 diabetes suffer a condition called Diabetic Ketoacidosis...left untreated, people die quickly
www.cnn.com/world/live-n...
Google is eating its seed corn
Photo of a toddler with short, dark hair, crouching on a sunny lawn to gently pet a tuxedo tabby kitten.
Babies. Photo from my collection- according to the back this is Lance and Fluffel in 1963.
Oh, now I'm mad about synthetic division all over again. Hate it!
Your daily affirmation:
Success is usually a series of failures, so get out there and fail your best.
I will never get over how the result of going through a global pandemic that killed over 7 million people, including 1.2 million Americans—and where we swiftly created an effective vaccine for it—was massive growth in anti-vax sentiment, the rise of RFK Jr., and the return of fucking measles.
Most of the talk about OpenAI, Anthropic and “mass surveillance” neglected to mention that widespread scraping of the web is in itself mass surveillance.
stayman winesap apples, painted by mary daisy arnold, 1931
stayman winesap apples, painted by mary daisy arnold, 1931
It's #WomensHistoryMonth AND #WomeninHorror Month, so let's talk about these intersections with @untappedny.bsky.social 3/24 6pmEST! Join this FREE illustrated virtual talk hosted by yours truly + Andrea Janes, founder of @boroughsofthedead.bsky.social RSVP:
www.untappedcities.com/spectral-wom...
Frog samples one of Toad's cookies, which are the best cookies he has ever eaten. From "Cookies" In *Frog and Toad Together*
“Frog, Frog,” cried Toad, “taste these cookies that I have made.”
Frog ate one of the cookies, “These are the best cookies I have ever eaten!” said Frog.
Tragic. Please pass this along to US Chairs and Deans, and consider it when you sit on promotion committees. This, combined with the review backlog, is dire - especially for our early career researchers.
Yellow bird with black face and red eye, all puffed out and slightly damp.
Let me start a belated thread of Aotearoa New Zealand silvan birds.
To lead things off, a New Zealand Bellbird photographed on Kapiti Island.
A graph with white and light grey striped background showing levels of COVID-19, RSV, FLU A, and FLU B levels for Ontario
Wastewater levels for Ontario, released today, March 6th, 2026…otherwise known as “during COVID”
wwater.ca/Ontario
Looking for stuff to read and watch for Hugo nominations? Looking for creators to nominate? We at NOAF have you covered:
www.nerds-feather.com/2026/02/2026... (links in this one to more categories at the bottom)
Thank you so much. That's super interesting and helpful.